Prejudice drips from hollow accusations

Huma Abedin assists Hillary Clinton.

Inquirer Editorial

Posted: July 20, 2012

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) has provided more evidence that the Republican Party dodged a bullet when she dropped out of the picture as a leading contender to become the GOP presidential nominee.

Bachmann and four other Republican members of Congress have all but accused Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's top aide, of being in league with the Muslim Brotherhood. They have asked the State Department's inspector general to investigate their suspicions.

On what grounds? The very flimsiest for such a charge: a 10-year-old Brigham Young University Law Review article, which claimed Abedin's late father founded an organization that received funding from a group with historical ties to the Brotherhood.

The accusation is as spurious as it would be to accuse GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney of having something to do with Bachmann's quest just because he is a Mormon and Brigham Young is a Mormon school.

While Romney didn't have an immediate comment on what smells like a witch hunt, the GOP's last standard bearer, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) came to Abedin's defense. "These attacks have no logic, no basis, and no merit, and they need to stop," he said.

McCain noted that Bachmann et al offered "not one instance of an action, a decision, or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department," or before as Clinton's Senate aide, "that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities."

Abedin suffered enough pain when her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.), resigned last year after admitting to sending lewd photos of himself to young women. The attack on her character now seems to be motivated by the same prejudice too often directed toward Muslim Americans even this many years after 9/11.